Some types of host devices include a central processor unit having one or more data storage devices. A typical data storage device includes a rigid housing having a base and top cover that form an enclosure for housing a variety of data storage components. Often, a printed circuit board (PCB) is mounted directly to the enclosure of the data storage housing and electrically communicates with and operates the data storage device.
Data is transferred between the host device and the data storage device by way of an interface. Data to be written to the data storage device is passed from the host device to the data storage device via the interface. Vice versa, data read from the data storage device is passed from the data storage device to the host device via the interface. In general, the interface includes hardware and/or software that manages and regulates the transmission of data between the data storage device and the host device. A standard committee, such as the American National Standard Institute (ANSI), oversees the adoption of interface protocols such that peripheral devices (for example a data storage device) follow a common standard that can be used interchangeably with a variety of different host devices.
One widely used interface standard for interfaces between data storage devices and host devices include the Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA) standard. A previous ATA standard was known as the parallel ATA (PATA) interconnect standard. PATA has been widely used to interconnect data storage devices with host devices for over 20 years. However, PATA has a number of limitations that are exhausting its ability to continue increasing performance demands of ever changing data storage devices and host devices. The limitations of the PATA interface has recently led to the development of a new ATA specification known as a serial ATA (SATA) interconnect standard. One of many of the details of the SATA specification includes standard geometric dimensions for a SATA electrical connector coupleable to a PCB. The SATA electrical connector acts as the SATA interface between the data storage device and the host device.
A SATA electrical connector includes a housing that houses contact leads and contact pads for data transfer as well as power transfer. The contact leads are coupleable to contact pads on the PCB with solder joints. The contact pads are coupleable to a receptacle connector of the host device. The housing both protects the contact leads that are soldered to contact pads of the PCB as well as provides features for mating the electrical connector coupled to the PCB with the receptacle connector of the host device.
Although SATA electrical connectors are an improvement over PATA electrical connectors, a SATA electrical connector soldered to a PCB can lose signal integrity as well as can experience electromagnetic interference (EMI) at high data transfer frequencies. In addition, signal impedance is a common problem in SATA electrical connectors because of the solder joint connection between the contact leads of the electrical connector and the contact pads of the PCB.